The Lost Seas

Deep Cover: Altaruk

Paying the Levy 7

19

JUL/12

Recorded by scholars studying the life of Vilsis.

After witnessing the return of the Gulgan guards and hearing horrific stories of the trip to the Dragon’s Altar, the party decides that the best course of action is to infiltrate the remaining band of slavers outside Altaruk, and hopefully gain access to Eenga, the party approached Galad of the Night Runners, who was quick to offer party 50 dragons each plus food and water to take on guard duties through the trip to the Dragon’s Altar.

Vilsis tried to suss out whether The Red Chord leader was among this group of slavers by feigning a distaste for tareks. Indeed she was, though this bit of subterfuge may have been unnecessary – Galad immediately went on to assign each member of the party to a different guard commander, including Eenga, the tarek in question.

For the final night before the arduous journey is to begin, each of our heroes took a turn on guard duty.

Vilsis had the first shift on duty, alongside Dibb, a Balican human member of the Cloud Rays. Playing up the role of the callous slaver, he mashed the hand of a disobedient slave with a standard-issue knout, much to the enjoyment of this fellow jailers.

Birel, working under the command of Gretz of the Daughter Seizers, considered getting some water for a dying elderly slave, but was ultimately dissuaded by the threat of attracting skepticism from her commander. It seemed at least as if this old man wouldn’t fall victim to the Dragon’s fiery embrace.

In a joke from the fates, Bost was assigned to work under Eenga, who looked suspiciously at the armor he had recovered from her former partner’s corpse, but wasn’t quite able to place it. During his shift, Bost was approached by a rotten-toothed half-elf who wanted Bost to stand guard while he assaulted a female slave. Bost was having none of it and intimidated the brown-toothed fiend into submission. Later, when the half-elf was caught attempting to entice the female slave over to the fence, the other Red Chord members beat him savagely for “fraternizing”, against Galad’s rules. Bost gladly joined in.

Zuri took the penultimate shift under the watch of Cecilyn of the Silent Arrows. Having a rock thrown at him from within the slave pen, Zuri projected a fearsome threat into the slave’s mind rather than identify him to his fellow jailers for retribution.

Finally, Dazeel took the final shift with the gith Nan-ya-Boruud of the Murder Tribe.

There was also plenty of activity away from the slave pen:

Zuri was able to locate Swann, his undercover Veiled Alliance contact. Using a game of dice as a cover, had a quiet conversation about how he might find Agma, their captured colleague.

Vilsis snuck into the Red Chord camp in order to inspect the tent of Ko-Tok, the Red Chord’s thri-kreen defiler. Finding her inside the tent, Vilsis snuck around to the back and stealthily set fire to the back of the tent in hopes that he might be able to injure the defiling scum – or at least sow disorder among the slavers. The fire caught, but was quickly doused by a swarm of insects – issued by Ko-Tok herself, do doubt – and Vilsis barely snuck away unnoticed.

Shortly before dawn on the day of departure, the party witnessed Ko-Tok heading alone into the dunes to the north, clutching a large tome of some kind.